


it's hard to write about being happy

by ednae



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Father's Day, M/M, theyre in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 06:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19245517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ednae/pseuds/ednae
Summary: Time goes on, he realizes for what feels like the first time.





	it's hard to write about being happy

**Author's Note:**

> happy fathers day yall
> 
> i wrote like half of this in a subway on my lunch break today so it's not exactly the most polished but i just really wanted to post this in time for papa day ;w;

Sousuke drags his feet as he pulls open the front door and steps over the threshold into his apartment. His legs feel heavy; it’s a struggle to move even one more step. Still, he keeps going because that’s all he’s ever done.

He runs a weary hand down his face, pausing mid-stroke as he feels prominent wrinkles at his cheeks.

Time goes on, he realizes for what feels like the first time. He’s almost fifty, and the world has moved forward and swept him along with it, without regard to him or his dreams.

Yeah, dreams. Those had been left behind a while ago, when his joints moved properly and his life was vibrant and full of color. When Musubi was alive and he hadn’t drowned his grief with work. When smiles came easy and the future was bright.

His apartment is dark as he fumbles for the light switch.

Golden light flickers on, casting a soft glow along dark, polished furniture and sleek fixtures scattered throughout the room. There’s not a speck of dust along the surfaces, no indication that this place has ever been lived in. No bills scattered along the kitchen table, no pillows fallen to the floor, no stray toy that hasn’t made its way back to its proper home.

It’s just a house, an empty apartment where he sleeps. It’s nothing special. Even Gaku has left now, living on his own in a place much brighter than this.

He has nothing here for him.

A sigh escapes his lips before he can stop it, and it echoes in the empty apartment filled with glossy, expensive furniture that could never make the house a home.

He trudges to his bedroom, ignoring his aching back and the door to Gaku’s old bedroom that has been shut tight ever since he left.

His phone buzzes again, like it’s been all night, and he ignores that too. He knows it’s another manager from the company asking him to do more work tonight because he never stops working and neither do they. But he indulges himself on this one thing and throws his phone to the side as he throws himself onto his bed, carefully because he’s not young anymore, because he can’t just do anything he wants and get away with it.

The bed, big enough for two, sags under his weight, but still it keeps its pristine form that had been made up by the housekeeper who picks up after him day after day. He can afford it, and he’s never been good at cleaning.

He can afford a lot now. His company is thriving and he’s at the top of it all. If anything, his apartment is modest compared to his paycheck.

Sousuke’s nose buries into a long, plush pillow as he remembers that money can’t buy a home.

His phone buzzes again. He ignores it again. Tomorrow he will finally check it and see dozes of messages with urgent requests and he will surely regret his decision, but tonight he doesn’t care about that. He will deal with the consequences of his choice.

The phone buzzes. It’s a call, and he scowls into the pillow and fumbles for his phone, tossed just far enough out of reach that he has to untangle himself and push himself upright. It’s lying face down, the illumination of the screen just barely trickling out from under it.

He grabs it and swipes his finger up on the screen to silence it, but stops short when he sees the name on the screen.

Sousuke hadn’t realized he still had his contact information. He had thought, somehow, that the data had been lost, or that he had deleted it during one of his fits. But the name is there in bright white lettering, shining up at him as the only beacon of light in his dark room.

He doesn’t answer it. Not tonight, not ever.

The phone silenced, he finally lets himself exist in the quiet, floating between consciousness and sleep. He hasn’t eaten yet, and his stomach grumbles occasionally, but he stubbornly ignores it because he doesn’t know how to cook, either. Ordering in sounds like too much of a hassle when it’s only him.

The clock on the wall ticks quietly, the only other sound in the room except for his breathing. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, only that it does, because time continues no matter how much he wants to freeze it.

A knock on his door jerks him back into alertness, and he groans in time with his joints as he struggles to sit up. He’s sure there’s an angry red crease on his cheek where he had his face pressed into the pillow, and his suit is irreparably rumpled, but he doesn’t have the mind to think about that.

He goes to the door. The dark, solid wood furniture bears down around him like an oppressive night. There’s no longer any light streaming in through the closed blinds, and twilight has long passed. If he were ever to open his blinds, he would see nothing but stars. Even the moon can’t be seen from the window, hidden by taller buildings and a terrible vantage point.

He’s ready to chew out whoever has dared to interrupt him tonight. Few know where he lives and even fewer would ever come to see him, and so even while his irritation spikes, he can’t help but wonder who might have gathered the nerve to come to the apartment of someone whose life work has been dedicated to intimidating as many people as possible.

“Who do you—” He breaks off when the door swings open and there’s a too-familiar face standing there in the doorway, a soft smile highlighting his laugh lines and crows feet prominent at his eyes. “You.”

Otoharu’s eyes open just a little, and Sousuke can see the deep fuschia shining out of them brighter than anything in his apartment. Suddenly it feels like midday, the oppressive darkness chased away.

He raises his free hand in greeting. “President.”

“Why are you here?” Sousuke quips. There’s a roiling in his stomach that he can’t understand.

Otoharu lifts his other hand and Sousuke notices a case of beer, held tightly in his aged, slender fingers. “I brought you a gift.”

Sousuke looks back up and finally sees the years. They’re the same age. Time has continued for them both. And even so, Otoharu’s face looks brighter, more full of life than Sousuke’s ever could. He wants to say it’s because of Musubi, because Otoharu was the one blessed with her love and her daughter, but he knows there’s more to it.

Because Otoharu controlled his time, and time controlled Sousuke.

His laugh lines are deep, and even now Sousuke can hear the little bubbles of laughter and see the wide, toothy grins that carved them. Even through age, Otoharu is young.

A pang of jealousy resounds in Sousuke’s tired body. If there is something else, he firmly ignores it, as he has done for his entire life.

“Are you pitying me?” he asks because it is easier than voicing his thoughts. “I don’t need a gift.”

Otoharu’s eyes glaze over and he looks through Sousuke to some unknown place he could never reach out and touch. “I already went to dinner with Tsumugi. She gave me new cufflinks. Rose gold edges and a bright pink stone. It’s cheap, but she said it reminded her of Kinako.” He flashes his wrist at Sousuke, his sleeves already adorned in the gaudy jewels.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’ve already finished what I need to do today,” is the explanation. “And so now I’m here.”

Eyes open wider and Sousuke struggles to breathe. He doesn’t understand, can’t possibly comprehend why Otoharu, his rival and enemy for as long as he’s known him, has come to his door tonight.

“Can I come in?”

Sousuke doesn’t have the voice to refuse. He steps to the side and Otoharu shuffles in, removing his shoes with the utmost care as if he were in a temple.

“Can we sit down?” And without getting Sousuke’s permission, Otoharu pads across the floor in socked feet and sinks into the luxurious sofa, all black leather that shines when light hits it. If light hits it.

The sofa doesn’t look so dark anymore.

Otoharu shifts around on the unused couch that’s hardly been used, and then pats his hand next to him. “Drink with me. It’s a time of celebration, right?”

Though Sousuke doesn’t feel the need to celebrate anything, he doesn’t refuse. Just Otoharu’s presence has brought life to his apartment, and somehow the unused furniture and empty floors don’t seem quite so depressing anymore.

His chest is tight.

Otoharu unboxes the bottles and pops the top off two of them with his own bottle opener. Sousuke raises his eyebrows at the small pink bunny ornament fixed atop of the trinket, but he doesn’t say anything. Otoharu has always been this way, reveling in cute things and finding the oddest things adorable.

The cufflinks Tsumugi gave him just a few hours earlier catch the dim lighting in the room, and Sousuke’s old, cold, silver ones feel heavy around his wrists.

“Here,” Otoharu offers, passing him a bottle. He has his own in hand, and he tilts his head back as he takes a long swig. “It’s a nice night, don’t you think?”

Sousuke grunts. “It’s the same as every night.”

“But it’s not. It’s a holiday. Doesn’t that make it special?”

Leave it to a persistent dreamer to say something so cheesy. He snorts and takes a sip of his own. “Hardly.”

“On special nights, the stars shine brighter.” Otoharu sounds so convinced of this nonfact that Sousuke almost believes him. “I like to watch them, sometimes.”

“You can’t see many stars from my windows,” Sousuke says. It comes out almost like an apology.

“You don’t have to look up at the sky to see the stars.”

Sousuke wants to know what that means, but he doesn’t dare ask. He lifts the bottle to his mouth instead and drinks greedily, perhaps desperately.

“Did Gaku say anything to you today?” Otoharu’s question is innocent, lightly prodding, but it stabs Sousuke like a knife.

“No.” Because of course he didn’t. It’s not like he’s ever given him a reason to celebrate this day.

Otoharu hums. “I think he misses you.”

“Why would you know something like that?”

“Father’s intuition.”

Ridiculous, Sousuke thinks. There’s no such thing. Gaku is with his mother tonight, probably working at that damned shop, and Sousuke is here, alone, without a call or even a text from his own son. Father’s intuition—nothing but a cruel joke.

“You should talk to him,” Otoharu suggests.

“I talk to him every day.”

“Not as the president of Yaotome Productions.” Otoharu’s eyes slip closed again and the room seems to dull, if only slightly. “As his father.”

The very idea is terrifying enough to make Sousuke’s stomach lurch painfully. He chooses not to respond because he’s not sure how.

Otoharu has shifted closer at some point, and Sousuke can smell expensive cologne on him. He can’t help but breathe a little more deeply, to take in as much of it, of him, as he can. “Sousuke.”

The name is jarring enough to startle him out of whatever reverie he was slipping into. “What is it?” His voice comes out gruff and throaty, a terrible mixture of annoyance and interest.

“You’re not alone.” Sousuke doesn’t know if Otoharu is referring to tonight or in general. Perhaps it’s both. “Not anymore.”

He wants to say that yes, of course he’s alone. Because the walls of his apartment are empty, no childish drawings covering them. Because Gaku’s door is sealed tightly, and he’s still too afraid to go inside. Because he hasn’t spoken to his own son outside of business in months.

He stays quiet and takes another drink. The alcohol is messing with his head, now, and Otoharu looks like he’s still getting closer.

He realizes dully that it’s he who’s getting closer. But Otoharu doesn’t pull away.

Sousuke knows that he has no idea what he’s doing. He hasn’t done anything like this in his life, not when he was married into the Yamamura family, not when he had the pleasure of knowing Musubi. He feels in control for the first time, and then their lips touch—softly, barely—and he forgets how to breathe.

Otoharu pulls away first, but it’s with a smile that drags Sousuke along with it. “Is this what you want?” he asks. It’s a stupid question because he can obviously see Sousuke leaning forward for more, helpless to stop this rush of repressed emotions, as if a floodgate has opened to reveal everything he’s violently tucked away.

He misses Gaku. He misses Musubi. He misses the chance he never took with Otoharu.

And all the while Otoharu smiles, waiting patiently for Sousuke to make heads or tails of this development.

When there’s nothing left to feel, when Sousuke’s weary body aches again and reality falls back in place around him, Otoharu is still there. All his discarded dreams gone, never to return, and Otoharu is still in front of him, opening his second beer and preparing one for him too.

“Can…”

Otoharu hums in response.

“Can we do this?” Sousuke fumbles over his words, not quite sure what to say, what he wants to say.

“We can do anything.” And Sousuke wants to believe that, in this moment, despite his body protesting and his joints aching and his time moving forward no matter how much he wills it to stop.

Otoharu’s fingers graze against his rumpled suit. He shivers. “What are you doing?”

Otoharu doesn’t respond. But he leans in again, his fingers digging into the fabric just barely separating their bare skin. Sousuke swallow and hates himself for wanting more.

He is a greedy, selfish CEO, a man whose worth has been built upon taking without giving back. It’s in his nature. And so he lets himself give into impulse and he takes and takes, suddenly finding his hands on Otoharu’s chest and his legs tangled in his as he pushes him back into the cushion.

And he takes, eyes closed and face burning as he forces Otoharu’s mouth open and deepens the kiss he wasn’t aware he started.

He’s not alone, for the first night since Gaku became an adult and walked out of his front door. He’s not alone, because Otoharu is here. He’s not alone, and the hands that roam his back and grip his shoulders, holding him closer, closer, until he’s not sure where Sousuke ends and Otoharu begins, remind him of this.

Otoharu pulls back panting, his head falling into the back of the sofa. The throw pillows have fallen to the floor, the half-drunk beer bottles scattered across the table. Droplets of spilled beer trail across the otherwise spotless glass in a shaky line.

There are shoes two pairs of shoes by the doorway and two hearts beating and Sousuke hears each one with astounding clarity.

“Happy father’s day,” Otoharu breathes. His eyes open and he smiles softly. Hands reach out and cup Sousuke’s cheek and he realizes he hasn’t felt someone else’s touch in so long.

He swallows. “You, too.”

Otoharu’s breathless laughter makes this house a home.

**Author's Note:**

> as always you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/polythagoras) where i love papas on main


End file.
